Photoshop: Menu too small on Windows high res display

On my monitor (2560 x 1600) the menu on CC 2014 is too small - so tiny I can hardly read it. Selecting Expereimental 2nd option makes the whole programme far too big. Either so small I can't see it unless I sit very close to the monitor or so big it is unusable.
No problems with PS CC, only PS CC 2014. Having to unistall CC 2014 and go back to CC. Support offer NO solution

Neo Shamon posted a brilliant and simple solution to this problem on his blog (PS 6). My NEC 4K monitor is set to 3480x2160. I just followed his easy directions and BINGO it works beautifully! Thanks a MILLION, Neo!!! Tools were practically microscopic prior to implementation. Now they are perfect! Here's the link...

I have a color-calibrated, high resolution monitor (2560 x 1440) on Windows 7 64-bit SP1, and the font size on Photoshop is either too large or too small. I've tried all the UI Font Size and UI Scaling options, and restarted PS each time, and no matter what I pick, the font is either too tiny to see without getting very close to the screen, or so large that only a small portion of the UI is left visible for the photo (i.e. it's not practical to use PS to edit photos). I've also been through all the Windows controls for font size. They don't fix the PS issue, they simply mess up the fonts for all the other applications. Lightroom and all my other applications (email, browsers, word processing, etc.) look fine on this monitor, it's only Photoshop fonts that are problematic. I've called support multiple times about this issue, and they always say sorry, it will be fixed in the next release, but the next release comes and it's never fixed. I updated PS again today (Aug. 6, 2015) and have the latest, and it's still not fixed. Today support suggested I ask the question here to get a better estimate as to if and when this will be fixed. Can someone help? BTW, if I use Photoshop on my second monitor (1920 x 1080), the fonts work reasonably well. But I'd sure like to use my expensive, color-calibrated monitor with PS--that's why I bought it.
Please advise, and thanks.

I looked at that solution, but am not willing to hack my registry and add a file I don't really understand (from what is to me, an unknown source). To be sure there is no offense, lack of gratitude, or disrespect intended here toward Neo Shamon. (Thank you Neo for going to the effort to figure this out and document it so well.) Of all the programs I have installed on my PC at home and at work, I have never had to manually hack the registry and add an file from an unknown third party website to make a program (that I paid good money for) work properly. I do thank you for pointing out this option, but to me it's non-starter unless Adobe formally endorses it, is willing to provide support for it should something go wrong, and can assure me that future installs of PS CC will work properly after implementing this fix. If that's the case, someone from Adobe please step up to the plate, take full ownership, put Neo's workaround and all necessary files on the official Adobe support website, and I will give it a go. Better yet, Adobe, please fix PS CC so it works properly for customers with high-res monitors, and do this in the next update. This issue has been alive and kicking far too long. This question should definitely not be marked as Answered, because Adobe has NOT answered it. My $0.02.

Robert, I feel the same way. Every program I have used in windows allow me to easily change size through the windows settings, except adobe. In fact I still use a program from my windows 95 days that hasn't been updated since and it follows windows changes. and my monitor only goes to 1920 X1080.

Has any solution for this issue been found or implemented yet?
I've updated from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and yesterday hooked up my Dell 2414Q, high-resolution 4K. Upon opening my PS CS5 found the problem of the small icons, menu & task bar staring me in the face.
I lowered the resolution, but there was hardly any improvement at all. And the UI thing didn't work.
So is hacking my registry, which I'm not experienced enough to try, or using the magnifier the only other tricks of the trade to try?
I'm tired of squinting, which makes me look as though I'm suffering from constipation....according to my husband. I thought about purchasing special binoculars, but haven't quite figure out how to attach them to my face in order to keep my hands free for illustrative work in ps.
Keeping the faith.....Dody

Chris, how can you say it was solved????? It is not. So many users are still having this problem, and Adobe support has told me several times (and as recently as 2 weeks ago) that this is still a known issue, and they said it will be fixed in an upcoming release (but they keep saying that, and the fix never comes). Why does this blog keep trying to claim it's solved when it is clearly not?

Because it was solved with the introduction of the 200% UI Scaling feature in Photoshop CC 2014 - as already noted at the top of the topic. I'm sorry that someone from support was unaware of the current features in Photoshop - but this was already solved last year.

OK, I see the disconnect now. The 200% UI Scaling feature did NOT solve MY problem, and from what Adobe phone support has told me as recently as 2 weeks ago, I'm far from alone. Perhaps this new feature has helped some folks, but what it did for me was give 2 options--font that is too tiny to see, or font that is so large you are left with only a small fraction of the user interface in which to view your photos--a fraction that for my display was unusable. I had Adobe support remote onto my PC and we went through ALL the permutations of UI scaling and Windows font sizing together so they could see for themselves that there is still a problem, and the 200% UI Scaling feature did NOT fix it. They suggested I start checking this blog to get updates on the status of the fix which is still supposedly in development. So the support folks I spoke with were well aware of this feature, I had already tried it and found it did not help on my display (which they verified), and I (like many users) are still frustrated and waiting for a fix. Hopefully that clears up why I (and so many others) are saying that this is NOT answered or fixed.

Since “The problem listed in this topic is solved with the 200% UI Scaling”, my original question should not be merged with this topic because the problem listed in my question is NOT solved with the 200% UI Scaling. I suspect there are other users here that have been trying to say the same thing. Their problem is NOT solved either. Please unmerge my question and reopen it as a new topic so progress on the issue I reported can be tracked.

Chris,
Thank you for the response. So what you are saying is that there is/was a compatibility problem between Photoshop software & high resolution monitors, causing my small icon problem?
And Adobe has addressed the issue with an update provided in PS CC 2014.2.x (as stated above), and I can download this update for free to fix the compatibility problem? I just click on the link above that you supplied.....this won't affect my PS CS5 in any way will it?

This topic is marked "Answered". There appear to be at least some customers for which the "answer" (i.e. the Photoshop CC 2014 200% UI Scaling feature) did not resolve the issue.

I've opened a new, unanswered topic named "Photoshop CC 2015 UI font scaling produces font sizes too big or too small on high-res monitors (not fixed by PS CC 2014 UI font scaling feature)" in the hope that the remaining issue(s) can be tracked there until resolved. Below I've attempted to add a link to the new topic.

So disappointed at the failure of Adobe to fix the menu font and icon incompatibility in Photoshop for high resolution monitors. I have complained about this for two years (back to the CS6 days) and the user groups across the web are full of like complaints.

Now even with a new CC 2015 and Windows 10 the problem is still unresolved. The PS screen either has 7 pt labels on microscopic icons or 30% of the screen real estate is taken up by the 200% UI resolution option. I would give up all of the CC 2015 updates for solution to this one problem which makes using PS stressful and frustrating instead of the pleasure it should be.

There is nothing that Adobe talent can't fix. You can fix this, if you care to. Obviously whatever your development systems are, you are not living with this issue or you would have addressed it.

With all due respect, if you look at the image I posted with my post earlier today, the bottom part of the image is what the 200% UI scaling looks like (the top part is what either 100% or automatic looks like. You'll notice that with 200% scaling there is no room for layers, there is no room for pallets, brushes, filters or anything else to display. It is unusable. To say that this is a fix is unconscionable.

This issue has been on the books since CS6 . At that time the Adobe developer identified a work around which involved manually setting the Windows 7 display to 151% which triggered some kind of threshold value and would allow CS6 to display properly. Unfortunately the work around will not work with CC2014 or CC2015. I actually reloaded CS6 last night but even the workaround won't work with Windows 10 (which works brilliantly with every other piece of software except Adobe).

I share the views of others, I am not (nor should I have to) hand-jam a registry fix. I am a highly experienced end user, but that is a boundary I won't cross.

I don't know what the Adobe development systems environment looks like - but I've seen all sorts of monitors mentioned in posts. Why does this plague the user base and not the developers? Trust me, if this was your day-to-day experience, this would be fixed.

This has NOT been answered! I have the latest MSI laptop, 4k screen with GeForce graphics card, all other software works without a problem in Windows 8.1. It is ONLY Photoshop that does not work. This affects my work every day. Adobe have known about this issue for over 18 months. WORK IT OUT ADOBE!

Wayne, I opened a new, unanswered topic named "Photoshop CC 2015 UI font scaling produces font sizes too big or too small on high-res monitors (not fixed by PS CC 2014 UI font scaling feature)" in the hope that the remaining issue(s) can be tracked there until resolved. Below I've attempted to add a link to the new topic.

Good post there Robert. You know, Adobe turnover 2015 1.25billion with net profits of $150million. You'd think they could afford to buy the best coders to fix the problem for their most used and famous piece of software...

This issue has been around since Adobe first started writing Windows versions.

Adobe uses bit mapped fonts for their UI... makes it look pretty and ensures icons and related text stay the same size (the easy/lazy approach), but also makes the UI incompatible with a user's personal needs.

No, Adobe uses the OS standard fonts for it's UI, which are vector. I'm not sure where you got bogus information about using bitmapped fonts.

But Windows had some problems with UI scaling until relatively recently - when we worked with Microsoft to get 200% UI Scaling working in Photoshop, as described above in the official answer at the top of the topic.

I beg to differ. Here's an example from my desktop... Desktop small font is 9 pixels for a lower case. The CS menu font is only 5 pixels. I'm not even sure I have any 5 pixel fonts installed (and this install doesn't have any Adobe fonts).

Here's two UI menus together: top is MS Excel, bottom CS. CS is NOT using the standard system font.

One other usability point, with the UI this small, finding the corner of the eye-dropper is more than painful. It's tedious and even my mouse squirms.

The OS controls the menu font size on Windows. And you can count the 9 pixel hight of the fonts in Photoshop --- which is the same as Excel's menu type.

Photoshop is using the OS standard fonts for it's UI, and those are vector fonts, not bitmaps. Excel is turning off the OS LCD color filter antialiasing for their menus (and I'd love to know how, since that is drawn by the OS) - but that is the only major difference.

As a user, and as a past Product Marketing Manager for software, the CS design team made a bad choice. You should have fixed the menu problems for the sake of usability. Now you're living with disgruntled customers and can't fix it without major pain. My case is only a 120DPI monitor; can't imagine users with 2k displays. And a simple patch to explode the UI features 200%? Well, that's a knee jerk panic mode approach; another sign of questionable decision making.

We released the update for 200% UI scaling in Photoshop CC 2014, as noted in the official answer at the top of this topic. That was as soon as we could release it after working with Microsoft to address the Windows issues that caused problems for UI scaling in complex applications. We are continuing to work with Microsoft to address the remaining issues in Windows to allow more flexible UI scaling.

My question is: how is it possible that all other Adobe software work fine - Illustrator, InDesign, Fireworks, Dreamweaver all no problem...ONLY Photoshop has the issue. it is therefore NOT a windows problem - stop blaming Microsoft and fix your bloody software!

Most other applications do have issues, which is why we have been working with Microsoft to address the issues in Windows that cause problems with UI scaling.
We are still working with Microsoft to address the Windows issues needed to allow more flexible UI scaling in Windows applications.

Wayne, Chris has a job: that is to mark the topic "resolved" ... Let's be clear: closing help requests is his priority here. The fact users say the "response" doesn't help them, or Chris' answers don't fit facts... well, those are just annoyances.

So why can't Adobe use 1.25 and 1.5 scale factors? Windows supports them today. They require additional bit mapped button icons, but Adobe won't pony up the man hours to do a simple fix.

There are other apps that suffer this issue - hard coded or bit mapped fonts in the UI - but at least those manufacturers own up to it as a man power issue and acknowledge they have prioritized other work first... and rather than blame others, explain it that way.

Actually there are problems today. Again, we are working with Microsoft on the issues necessary to allow more flexible UI scaling on Windows.
Again, Photoshop doesn't have bitmap fonts in the UI.
We're telling you exactly what is going on.

I just got a BenQ 2711U monitor which I set up for 3840x2160 resolution on my Windows 7 desktop. I got this $900 monitor specifically to use with Photoshop CC to process my Nikon .NEF files and I really love it. I had the same tiny tiny UI fonts at first, however, but I tried the suggested method of using Experimental Features 200% UI. It worked just fine for me. My UI is restored to its normal size but I can see where if someone were using a lower resolution than mine, they might get an unusable, oversized UI. I guess Adobe will have to offer a scaled new UI resolution option instead of one that just doubles the size of the UI in upcoming releases of this otherwise superb software.

Hey guys. First, I not defending adobe but Chris is taking the time to keep us informed that adobe is working on it. Eventually they will get it figured out. You also have to realize that when new tech comes out, software companies have to patch or rewrite their code in order to stay in business.

Obviously Adobe didn't Follow everyone else when they made their UI and now their paying for it.

Just remember. Chris is taking the time to inform us that Adobe is trying to resolve this. It's a inconvenience but again, it is not Chris's fault. Give him a break!!

This is the exciting part. All you have to do is copy your manifest file to all of the application folders that you would like to change the scaling on. For example, Photoshop.exe is located at: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit) therefore, I have created a manifest file in text editor named photoshop.exe.manifest to place in that folder.

Here is a link to a txt file with the manifest code: manifest.txt
For Windows to use the external manifest file, you will have to change the name of the the file to the executable of the application. (e.g. photoshop.exe.manifest)
Here are the files I created for my device (Right-click and save to use on your machine):

Update: As of 10/25/17, we are closing this program to new applicants. We have a large number of participants already. Thank you to everyone who registered!

The Photoshop team has been listening to your many requests for better scaling options on Windows, and we’re happy to announce that we are ready for beta testing on this feature. Because of the large scale changes involved in this feature, we want to make sure people have the opportunity to test it out before it’s released.

All Windows customers are welcome to join and test, but please note that you will need to have Windows 10 Creators Edition installed in order to use the new continuously scalable user interface and per-monitor scaling. Windows 7, 8 and prior versions of Windows 10 will only support 100% and 200% - as the continuously scalable user interface requires APIs only available in Creators Edition.

It's been 5 months now, and continuous scalability is still not available to users of Windows 10? This is an accessibility issue that's of great concern to many users with vision acuity issues. When will we get it?

I fixed it on my computer, Windows now has a built-in way to handle it:

1. Right-click on the Photoshop icon2. Right-click on the next Photoshop icon (at the top of the menu), and select "Properties"3. Select "Compatibility" tab4. In the Settings section check the "Override high DPI scaling Behavior. Scaling performed by [Application]5. Apply and OK

I have a Samsung 3200x1800 display. Scaling doesn't work. The type is still too small and menus are awkward. Before the 2018 version, I had a Windows registry tweak that worked beautifully. Now it doesn't. Lightroom and all of your competitors programs work perfectly. When I talk to tech help, they treat me like it's my fault. The last suggestion was to roll back to an earlier version. This isn't acceptable.

I am not sure this will work for anyone else, because I am not savvy with computers. But I did the following on my Lenovo:1. Open Windows folder2. Open Program Files folder3. Open Adobe folder4. Open Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 folder5. Right-click on the Adobe Premiere Pro.exe file6. Select "Properties"7. Select "Compatibility" tab8. Select Change settings for all users 9. Select Change high DPI settings10. Check the "Override high DPI scaling Behavior. Scaling performed by [System]11. Apply and OKAnd the fonts in the menus and timeline all appeared normal again

Thanks for the great suggestion. Unfortunately, once Photoshop went to CC, things can't seem to be fixed. I used to have a work-around but no more. I tired your suggestion but my menus still fall off the screen. Again, thank you!

I'm running Photoshop CS4 Extended on a Windows 10 Pro 64-bit machine with an Asus MG28U UHD 3840 x 2160 display. I had scaling issues with Photoshop menus in addition to seeing 3 cursors in the Photoshop window. With the following display and executable file settings, the duplicate cursors are gone, and the menus appear at an acceptable size for my use:

Notes1. I had to repeat steps 7-19 for the Photoshop application file in both Program Files and Program Files (x86) for the solution to work.2. I'm the only user on my computer. If there are multiple users, then at step 13 you may have to select "Change settings for all users."

Display Settings1. In Windows 10, right click on desktop and select "Display Settings"2. Under "Scale and layout," select "Advanced scaling settings"3. Under "Custom scaling," enter 1514. Hit "Apply," sign out, and sign back in (signing out will close all applications, so make sure you save important files)

Photoshop Executable File Properties5. Right click on the Windows icon in the corner of the Windows taskbar and select "File Explorer"6. Open Local Disk (C:)7. Open Program Files (x86) folder8. Open Adobe folder9. Open Adobe Photoshop folder10. Right-click on the Photoshop application file11. Select "Properties"12. Select "Compatibility" tab13. Under "Compatibility mode" toggle "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" and select "Windows Vista (Service Pack 2).14. Under "Settings" toggle "Run this program as an administrator"15. Under "Settings" select "Change high DPI settings"16. Under "Program DPI" toggle "Use this setting to fix scaling problems for this program instead of the one in Settings"17. Under "Use the DPI that's set for my main display when," select "I open this program"18. Under "High DPI scaling override" toggle "Override high DPI scaling behavior, Scaling performed by:" and select "System (Enhanced)".19. Hit "Ok" then "Apply"20. Run Photoshop to confirm the settings work.